Love is Vastly Overrated, Give Me Healthy Lust Any Time

I left you people with a few questions and no answers in the last installment. In the meanwhile there have been comments on the article.

Some of you have lost someone this way, but you say there are no regrets yet you would advise that in the future girlfriends should be chosen carefully, since law is a jealous mistress; a lady is happy with her boyfriend who is working with a Senior, since though busy he makes time for her every time.

Someone else wrote in almost incomprehensible text-language, (which has a vague resemblance to English and which uses words like “upcumming” longer than the original upcoming, and which leaves us all a little mystified about whether the person has priapic problems) that he still dreams of a relationship.

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So we have run the whole gamut: from no a junior lawyer cannot have a lasting romantic relationship to no he can always have one with a bit of dreaming in the middle.

I find though that the lady has said that her boyfriend is understanding and always takes time off. I do not see any post from a guy saying his girlfriend is understanding and does not mind when he really cannot leave work and visit her or take her visiting.

Again, it is difficult to choose with whom you will fall in love, as the first gentleman who commented seemed to advise. Love happens. You can resist it but you cannot draw up a shortlist of attributes, find a “best-fit” and then decide to fall in love; it does not usually happen that way UNLESS its an heiress who is tremendously ugly. The girl also has a say.

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I guess in the end it is a question of what you value most.

Independent means so that at a certain point in life you will be able to make time for the best things in life, or a fulfilling life now, regardless of what it will do to your career, because after all, “money isn’t everything”.

I am not happy about either choice; because if it is the latter, then you will never ultimately be happy, since you will keep on blaming, at least sub-consciously, the love of your life for holding you back from what you think, you could have been or when you compare your 1.5 lakhs a month at the end of your professional life with those bookish, nerdish friends who are pulling ten times as much and were doing so when you plateaued out. If you take the former, then you will have no life at all.

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May I suggest a third alternative: it may sound callous and calculating, but I find that it is most fulfilling both in the short and the long runs.

My interlocutor, the junior I referred to in the first few lines of the first installment, has had a long relationship and also casual affairs; he tells me that casual affairs, where there are no commitments, no “I’ll be there until the stars all fade away” promises, no assurances of ever-lasting love and in sickness and in health, in happiness and in sorrow, are what work out best.

In other words, take your one evening off very seriously and take your opportunities, even while working very seriously, do not make long term plans, and live life for the day. I will try to make this a little more specific:

Whether you work with a lawyer in chambers, court or in a firm, you will always get free patches. Use your social networking sites, mobile phones with internet connectivity and “whatsapp” or similar applications to good use, and stay in touch with “suitable people”.

This works with both ladies and gentleman, depending upon your persuasion and your orientation. The social networking sites, your friends’ friend lists, all of these are rich with opportunities, which you must mine.

Whenever you are sent on work to Court or outside the office, make sure that your eyes are open, and as long as you do your work and are not neglecting some other work which must be done immediately, take your time coming back to office or to the senior or to the Court room where you are supposed to wait.

Use this time to interact, in real life, with those who have only experienced your charms in the virtual world. Set up meetings only after chambers or office ends on your free evening (usually Fridays).

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This has added advantages:

First, the ‘insignificant other’ who is your current leisure, will understand that unlike boy-toys, you are not at his/her beck and call.

Second, he or she will have a healthy respect for your work and the seriousness with which you take it—most of you who drop their work and run at the merest whim of your partners end up having your partners think that work is something that others except you do.

Third, if the person gets used to your physical presence only for a limited period every week that person will actually anticipate this brief encounter with longing and will not want your physical company all the time (unless of course we are dealing with someone unreasonable or psychotically possessive like me).

Fourth the difficulty of avoiding a permanent relationship will be far less since someone who is prepared to accept you on all those terms must either be casual about the relationship herself/himself or would love you so much, that anything you do will be all right in which case you can forget about the relationship needing more time or effort than you are prepared to give it. In either case, it will be easy on your part to break up when you want, so long as your heart has not become engaged.

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If you fall in love, however, disregard all that I have written. When you are in love, nothing matters. It is when you fall out of love that the realization dawns. It is then that you will embrace the philosophy of callousness and cynicism. Love is vastly overrated. Give me healthy lust any time.

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Protik Da needs no introduction to regular Lawctopus’ readers. Well, actually, we haven’t his tagline saved. Lost that during the Great August Crash. For now, just know that he is a stud.

I am the Admin of Lawctopus. I am for law students, of law students and by law students. I am Torts and Contracts and moots and internships. I am your boyfriend! And your girlfriend too! Mentor. Friend. Junior. Senior. I am the footnote in your research paper. Foreword in your life. The jugaad for your internship. The side gig which earns you bucks. I am Maggi. Pocket money too.

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11 COMMENTS

Reading the advantages part I truly can understand that what plight it must be to see your juniors running away leaving the work assigned to be at the ‘beck and call’ of their respective girlfriends/mistress..
Unfortunately life is just not about ‘work’; ultimately when you die I don’t think you would be be thinking of the ‘work’ or the Limitation Act but the happiness you encountered during the journey of life
Peace

Healthy lust is what the male animal specializes in Subham. If you ignore the highfalutin principles that people talk about but rarely observe, look at yourself and your friends in context: when you check out a beautiful junior in college, are you thinking in terms of marriage? You don’t have to tell us what the answer is. Be honest with and to yourself, bro.

Ajay I did say in the first and second sentences of the last paragraph that if you are in love, ignore whatever I have written. I respect love. It is only that I have seen so many more of its relics and ruins than anyone else – both in my life and in those with whom I interact – that I am afraid to believe in love everlasting. I do believe in mutual self interest, which passes for love. A busy husband who depends on his wife for everything and a compliant wife who does everything for her husband because, forgive me, he pays her rent. Is this love?
I have also seen the warmth in the eyes of a septuagenarian husband watching his sixty three year old wife, whom he married for love thirty years back, go about the ordinary business of setting the table for dinner. That was love. He also worked like a dog as long as he was alive, but found time for his wife and family. I am speaking of my late parents.
They were better people than most of us are today. Certainly far better than I am. I only sing of the present days – the songs of yesteryears may charm, but they do not sing of today’s truth.

Thank you for providing us with priceless insights into the second oldest profession in the world…
I agree completely with you n also may I say that the jealous mistress makes us realise that love is the most common form of ilillusion. I firmly believe that young new entrants into the legal profession (like me) will have to learn to change their girl to make her realise the value of their profession if need be..
n as they say – if you can’t change the girl, CHANGE the girl!
With best regards
shashwat bhardwaj

I disagree in totality,love and lust can never be compared as you have tried to. It is a person’s choice, to choose either of them, one cannot choose or enjoy both. To find love might be extremely difficult but if one gets, love is still the best possible known thing to any human being, but rather Love is now too under-rated.

Lets face it. Healthy lust is just an oxymoron. Unless you discount all forms of emotional attachment to qualify it into a relationship, none exists. So even if “no strings attached” is the buzzword(s) for the day, it aint love. But the question is, even if you are a happy couple (and they say lucky coz you are batchmates/peers minus all pangs of the long-distance), does professional competition take a toll on personal relationships, each time? Well, that’s what she says.

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